


One Last Day in the Shadows

by Anonymous



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Adorable Kurt Wagner, Canon Disabled Character, Charles Xavier in a Wheelchair, Crushes, First Dates, First Kiss, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Happy Ending, Holding Hands, M/M, Ororo Munroe is a Good Friend, Pietro Maximoff is a Little Shit, Pining, Post-X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Recovery, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Warren Worthington III Lives, Warren Worthington Needs Hugs, minor PTSD, not actually unrequited crush, unnoticed mutual pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29904975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: First, there's black. Then there's red.Then a woman is raising him up from his metal grave and sending him somewhere where she says it's safe.-or-An au where Warren is saved and shows up at the school looking for help. He just didn't expect to get attached to a blue teleporter during his stay.
Relationships: Kurt Wagner/Warren Worthington III, Warren Worthington III & Ororo Munroe
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20
Collections: X-Men Rare Pairs 2021





	One Last Day in the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [lavenderlotion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderlotion/pseuds/lavenderlotion) in the [xmenrarepairs21](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmenrarepairs21) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Post-X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Getting to Know Each Other, Getting Together, Recovery,
> 
> No one is expecting Warren to show up at the school, bloodied and bruised and sporting a pair of healed, feathered wings, but they take him in without a second thought. The School is a haven for all mutants, and Warren seems to fit in pretty well. But there's one person, someone with pretty blue skin and prettier eyes, who doesn't seem to like him.
> 
> Or... does he?
> 
> This. Was. So Much. More. Than I Planned.   
> This fic got away from me. I hope that you find it satisfying to your desires from this prompt. Enjoy the feels. I brought in a little bit of references to the comics with certain things, and please forgive me when it comes to Kurt's accent.

It starts with black. 

And then there's red at the edges. 

Red gives way to white, and he doesn't know if he's dreaming or dying or what, but he can't feel anything. He doesn't even have the ability to blink the colors away. 

A woman appears in the white, stark against it with her dark flowing hair and the red bodysuit that hugs her curves. She draws nearer, in his vision, and hovers above him with kind eyes that enthrall him. 

_ It's not your time to rest yet, Archangel _ , she says -- or thinks? -- to him, mouth unmoving. He flinches at the name. Someone with dark mental talons who had changed his broken wings to metal ones had called him that. 

The angel of death, and death had surely come, but was it to the right people?

She's raising him from his metal grave -- had he died after all? He couldn't remember for the life of him. -- and sets him in the dirt that's been mostly cleared of rubble. When did that happen?

_ There are people waiting for you _ , she tells him next as her glowing hands brush against him and metal crumbles away from his body.

He can't remember the last time anyone's waited for him. His parents weren't. He had no one but the ring he was thrown into, the fights that he would bloody himself with--

_ You must go to this place. _ He didn't mean to take his attention away from her. His savior.  _ They will take you in, Warren. They will give you a home and protect you. _

What is a home? He doesn't have one.

But Warren doesn't say no or turn away from her. She places a kiss on his head and he suddenly  _ needs _ to go to the place she's put in his mind. His wings spread and lift him up in the air and he's gone, gone from his resting place into the cloudless sky and doesn't stop.

He doesn't stop flying until he's followed the path his kind savior has left feeling certain in his bones. He soars above the broad sparkling ocean and bustling cities until the skyscrapers become green and trees.

He stops when he sees the restored building of the place the invasive master destroyed taking his desired vessel. Warren lowers himself into the lush yard by a split tree and feels his legs buckle. It must have been a while since he's used them.

There are people around him who stare. Adults, mutants his age, and many who are younger. None of them are who Warren was supposed to seek out. He needed the ves--the man named Charles Xavier. He feels it with another certainty that the man won't turn him away.

"Archangel?"

He jerks and stiffly turns to the voice. It's one of the other harbingers. He remembers her, with the stark white hair and her call of the weather.

"St-Storm," his mouth shapes out, words feeling...not right yet.

She looks upon him with shock, eyes wide like she's been struck by her own lightning. "How?" Storm asks, and his legs choose then to give out. She is there to take his weight and hold him up but Warren feels the black pull at him now that he's come where he was told to go. 

"What the hell is he doing here?" he hears as his head lolls onto Storm's shoulder and vision fades away. "How is he alive?"

"Not now, Scott! Get Kurt or Peter! Quickly!"

He does not know who this Scott gets but they are there quickly there, or maybe it is more time lost, and he is delivered into someone else's arms.

"Ich werde dich diesmal retten, Engel," is the last thing Warren hears before he loses his hold and slips back into the black.

\---

The black slowly recedes this time and Warren remembers more clearly when he can open his eyes.

It hits him with the gravity it deserves this time that he was dead. Cold dread washes over him and steals his breath while his mind is free to race over his last moments. 

It is like playing back his favorite cassette tape or one of the few VHS tapes he was rewarded from his wins; Warren's wings were given back to him by a powerful being, turned to metal while his thoughts were turned into emotionless whims to serve a master and kill at his bidding. Warren was used to nearly bring an end to the world and he died trapped in a tomb of metal because he could not escape the jet in time and slammed into the ground to be surrounded by fire.

Warren does not know why he is alive. But another mutant was behind it. She was like an angel herself as she raised him from Perdition and said this was where he was supposed to go.

"You gave Ororo a real scare."

Warren blinks and turns to the voice when he knows it wasn't in his head. For the first time, he also realizes that he hurts all over and is stiff. His attention slips again to the bandages that cover most of his body.

"Warren?"

"Sorry, yeah," Warren says. 

Charles Xavier comes to a stop by his bedside. There is no sign of anger or hate or any desire for retribution. He looks as welcoming and concerned as if Warren was one of the students who came to save him. 

"Can you tell me what you last remember?" Xavier asks him.

Warren frowns and scoffs. "Can't you take a look yourself?" 

"I can," the man nods, "but I would much rather not invade your mind without your permission. Hearing the words from you would be even better so that we know there isn't a problem."

All those fights and no one had given a shit if something was wrong with him unless it meant he couldn't fight. 

Warren rolls his tongue around in his mouth, thinking, before he nods. "I know now that I was dead," he says, "but not at first. There was nothing. And then she was there."

"Who was there?"

"I don't know," he shakes his head, "just some...woman. In red. And she said that there were plans for me and I needed to be here because you'd help me." 

The man's head tilts with a confused turn of his mouth. "They said we would take you in?"

"That's what she said, man. She said it, and I just  _ felt _ that I had to do what she said and came here."

Xavier purses his lips for a moment. "Would you permit me to see what she looks like?" he asks, giving his fingers a wiggle.

Warren shrugs and grimaces at the protests that his body screams at him. "Yeah. Go ahead."

"We can get Hank to give you something for the pain," the man offers quickly but Warren shakes his head.

"I'm used to it." 

That doesn't look like it sits well with the man but he doesn't argue. Xavier puts two of his fingers against his temple and gets a look of deep concentration, and then Warren can feel another presence in his head. Warren doesn't fight it since he gave the permission anyway, just relives the memories of the woman who gave him a second chance. Or maybe it counts as a third. 

Xavier drops his hand and leaves Warren's mind but the look stays. "I cannot say I know who this woman is," he tells him, "but she was correct. We welcomed Ororo with open arms, and Erik was offered a place to stay as well. You are free to stay here, Warren. You will have a place to rest, heal, and join classes with the other students should you choose to."

"There's a catch, right?" Warren has to ask, because this is way too good to be true. Being able to breathe should be impossible. There are way too powerful mutants out there and it left him unsettled. 

Xavier offers him a smile that is hard not to believe in. There's no sharpness to it, and his eyes are not hiding anything. Even the touch of his mind hadn't felt malicious. He'd done what he said he would and then left without any other action. "There is no catch," he promises, "you are free to stay as long as you'd like and leave if you do not wish to remain. You have my word."

Warren opens his mouth to answer when the man looks off to the side as a creak sounds from outside the room. He follows the gaze but all he catches are whiffs of blue smoke fading away.

"It seems an acquaintance of yours wanted to check in," the man muses. 

He doesn't look away from the door, even when the smoke is no longer there. Warren can smell the way his wing burned against the electric fence because of that smoke. There's no hard feelings about it; they were in a cage with the risk of dying if they didn't fight. It'd just been a point of broken pride when he felt like he'd been clipped of his freedom. 

"I'll stay," he tells the telepath. He knows with a certainty that he has nowhere to go and the allies here can be a benefit.

There's one, in particular, he had hopes of getting to see again.

\---

It's not until the bruises have gone down enough for him to be able to get out of bed that he sees his wings for the first time.

He's been given a room to himself, which he's fine with.

Warren flexes his wings in front of the standing mirror by the closet and watches the pearl-colored feathers spread and futter behind him. Just like they were before the final ring fight.

There's a pressure behind his eyes with the need to cry. He holds it back the best he can.

"If you need anything, you can come to me, Raven, or the Professor," Hank McCoy tells him from the doorway. Ororo is there, too, and some of the others from the battle are there. The redhead introduced them as Jean and Scott. 

"We'll all try to help in whatever way we can," Jean says amicably.

Scott, from behind those rad-looking shades, still hasn't decided if Warren's worth trusting. "We'll be around to keep a close eye, too," he warns. Warren can see the redhead roll her eyes while Ororo elbows him in the side.

Ororo is the one who comes closer. "When you would like, we can go shopping with Jubilee," she offers him, a tentative lifeline in place after what they were used for, "she has a very good eye for fashion."

He thinks about the leather jacket he lost in Germany during the transformation. "We can go soon," Warren tells her and matches her smile. 

"He's not going to fit in the car with those wings," Scott mutters, then yelps when he gets another elbow, this time from Jean.

"Let's give Warren some time to settle," Hank announces and guides the two into the hallway. "Ororo?"

She gives him another smile. "It is very good to see you." Alive, she doesn't add, but he gets it.

"I'm pretty glad to see it, too," he replies, and he welcomes it when she steps up with a hug. It feels good, the comfort that bathes him, as if she was standing with him in a rainfall. 

"How long was it?" he dares to ask, because he didn't bother with the Professor or Hank. Her arms tighten around him and dig into some of the bruises. 

He regrets the sadness there when she pulls away. "Almost two months." 

Warren isn't sure how to process that yet. Sixty days of being left where he was. Psylocke looked out for herself like he had to in Berlin. He can't blame her for not coming back. 

"We thought the explosion--" Ororo stops herself.

"No hard feelings, O," he tells her, and lets her leave with the others. Hank is nice enough to shut the door behind them. 

It leaves Warren alone, back to looking over his wings, and  _ not _ thinking about being dead for two months. Not long after that, he sees blue smoke in the mirror and meets a familiar pair of eyes when it clears. 

So far, every face-to-face between them has been a physical confrontation that Warren's lost. Berlin bred him to fight for survival while Kurt only wanted to escape.

"Now you aren't running?" Warren asks the demon's reflection. Kurt's adapted well to safety. Fun colors that should look horrible with the midnight blue skin. Warren actually likes it. There's no fear in the other mutant anymore. 

But there's something else. Warren can't tell what it is yet.

"Did not vant a fight," Kurt answers as his tail swishes around.

Warren shrugs and pulls his wings back as he sits down on the bed. "You're not getting one." 

Kurt stays put where he is, not looking like he's sure if he believes it. "Ve left you for dead."

"We weren't on the same side." That's how war works. Warren was not in control of being a part of it. "You did what you had to."

"I burned your ving," Kurt tries next. He's pushing buttons for the same response and Warren isn't there to give it to him. 

"The cost of a fight," Warren replies, touching his wing. "Doesn't matter anymore."

Kurt still frowns at him. He doesn't know what puzzle Kurt is trying to piece together. "It is good here," he tells the blond fiercely, "zey are friendly people. Ze humans aren't afraid of us. I vill protect zem if you hurt zem." 

A threat is new. Warren gets the message clearly. He admires Kurt a little bit for being brave enough to try.

"Don't plan on it."

"Good." Kurt vanishes in another plume of smoke. So not everyone is as open about his stay. That's cool. They can feel what they want. 

There's still a part of Warren that strangely hurts that Kurt is one of them.

\----

"You are rockin the George Michael vibe, Warren," Jubilee says approvingly, roving her eyes over his outfit. 

He stands outside of the dressing room appraising himself. Warren digs the new leather jacket, even likes the fingerless gloves that Jubilee and Ororo picked out for him. The white tee that's almost tight on his body and the faded blue jeans don't bother him. It's close to what he was wearing before but doesn't feel like he's throwing on a tough guy persona this time. 

"We can cut holes for your wings," Ororo adds helpfully. As they are now, Warren's wings are tucked flush against his back. 

"It's good," Warren tells them. "Thanks." 

"It looks good if you're trying too hard," Scott scoffs from his place by some neon-bright sweaters. 

"Not everyone can emulate rockstars, Scott," Warren replies easily, "it's nothing to be ashamed about. Some of us are only able to be the preppy boy." 

Jubilee snickers, as does Jean from where she's leaning against her. Scott shifts and crosses his arms, clearly put-out.

"I'm not preppy," Scott protests, which only makes the girls start to laugh. He even catches Kurt's lips twitch from where he sits on a display table just outside of the group. "I'm not!"

"You are, Scott," Jean condemns with a grin. 

Jubilee nudges her. "I have a few more ideas for Warren. Help me?" 

The girls walk off back into the depths of the store while Ororo is content where she is. "Maybe I should get a leather jacket, too," she says.

"Go for it," Warren encourages. "Then we can look like the two most badass students the school's got." 

Ororo holds her fist out for him to meet with his own. "You're on," she replies before cutting through the displays for the women's section. 

Scott still looks like he's sulking and doesn't say anything when he takes off in the direction Jean had gone. That leaves Warren with only Kurt for company. He doesn't have a problem with it, but Kurt hasn't exactly been sticking around anywhere Warren is for long. 

"What do you think?" Warren still asks him. Kurt's golden eyes look up from underneath blue-streaked bangs before he shrugs and looks away.

"Still looks like you," Kurt answers as his tail taps against his ankle. 

Warren turns and cocks his head at the nightcrawler. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing, Kurt?"

"It...always important to be yourself." Another answer that Warren can't decode. He wishes he could. 

Jean, Jubilee, and Scott returned with the girls carrying several more options. Jubilee wasn't kidding. Warren was perfectly fine with trying each one of them. 

After, Jubilee asks about a couple of games in the arcade, and that's when Warren sees Kurt light up like a Christmas tree. 

"Can ve?" the blue mutant asks, his tail swinging around excitedly. It's like watching a dog wagging its tail at the chance to play fetch. 

Scott shrugs, pleased to still have the role as leader. "Arcade sounds good." 

Warren's eyes don't leave Kurt the whole walk there. He drinks in the way Kurt still absorbs each passing thing with a refreshing innocence that the blond is glad wasn't snuffed out. If Raven hadn't stopped the cage match, Kurt would have been stuck in the same life Warren had been in. Warren watches as Kurt will start to wander, distracted by the next shiny new thing, and Jubilee reaches out and gently corrects his course with a tug of his tail. 

It's a small thing that hits Warren, the internal voice that says he wants to be the one who gets to keep Kurt on point.

Warren grows instantly wary when Jean looks back at him with knowing eyes. While the Professor keeps out unless permitted, Jean still doesn't have a strong hold and too easily sees the things no one else wants made public. He doesn't want to have to leave the school, now that he's settling in, all because a telepath saw that he has a hankering for things that the rest of the world still looks down on with contempt. 

But Jean's reaction isn't one of repulsion. She doesn't falter in her steps or turn on him.

_ It's okay. _ She leaves that message in his head, gives him a small smile, and walks on. 

Warren spends their visit to the arcade splitting his attention between Kurt playing two games at once and making the high score on Tempest.

"Hey, Warren," Jubilee pops up next to him and bounces against the game, "play me at a couple rounds of Space Invader?"

"Yeah, sure." His eyes seek out Kurt one more time and find him at a claw machine, the mutant intensely focused on a stuffed chibi-version of Kermit the Frog. 

"He'll warm up to you," Jubilee assures him, following Warren's gaze. "I think it's just because you're the one he had more contact with in the whole Apocalypse thing." 

Warren shrugs. "I can't make him like me." He wants to, though. 

They play a couple of rounds of Space Invader, some free thanks to Jubilee's power up. Ororo joins them at the game to watch, making bets with Jean and Scott about who'll win. Warren appreciates that she's on his team, while Scott surprises no one and says Jubilee.

"What about you, Jean?" Ororo asks, and the redhead just shrugs her shoulder with a quirk of her lips. 

"There's a fair chance to them both," she says.

It's Warren. Warren wins and makes another high score.

He grins at Jubilee and whoops, but gives her a high-five. "You nearly had me," he aquiesces. 

Jubilee snorts. "We'll just see about next time."

Scott checks his watch and sighs. "Okay, guys, we better head out before Peter's sent to get us."

"Someone should get Kurt," Jean says, and he knows that she's looking his way for a reason even if the others don't know it.

"I can do it," he gallantly volunteers.

Warren finds Kurt still at the claw machine. The Kermit sits on its side near the plexi-border of the dropbox. Kurt looks devastated at not being able to win his prize. On impulse, instead of fetching the mutant like he's supposed to, he takes another direction by fetching a couple of leftover tokens from his pocket. 

"Let me try?"

Kurt doesn't move right away, so Warren gently bumps him with a wing to motivate him. The blue mutant stands a few feet away but watches as he slides the tokens into the machine. Warren has a trick up his sleeve. 

He puts the claw right where he needs it to be and hits the button. As it descends, Warren waits until it's almost completely down before he knocks the machine with his wing. It jostles the claw enough to shift it the way Warren wants; the claws slip around Kermit's head like a facehugger from  _ Alien _ and he steps away from the controls, feeling accomplished, while the claw jostles and drops the reward down the hole. 

Warren pulls the Kermit out of the machine and holds it out to Kurt, who gapes at him in wonderment. He wiggles the stuffed animal until a three-fingered hand takes it.

"Zank you," Kurt says, stunned.

"Scott says it's time to go," he finally tells the other boy. When he starts for the exit, Warren sees various looks on the rest of the group, who had apparently been watching. Jubilee was giddy and he hopes she doesn't start squealing or something. Scott was the most confused and Warren was starting to think that's his default next to grumpy.

Then there was Jean, who got what she wanted.

Warren raises his eyebrows at them, wings lifting to mimic the gesture, as he raises his hands. "Are we going?"

The others get moving while Kurt lags behind. Warren's heart jumps against his chest when he sees Kurt pet Kermit's head.

\---

Warren's taken to the classes. Education wasn't an option when Calaban's friends had thrown him into the cage matches. It gives him something new, lets him feel like there's a reason to hope his future can be a better one.

He might also like that his seat in the back gives him a vantage point of where Kurt sits near Jubilee. Warren likes to take in the open aw the nightcrawler wears during the Professor's teachings. How the sun that gets cast through the high windows makes his skin take a glow as if he's some fairytale creature instead of what others accuse to be an atrocious demon.

And there are the times now when Kurt might sneak a look back in Warren's direction. He doesn't know if it's a good look or not, since Kurt still tries not to emote around him too much, but it's fine.

Raven's waiting for him when class lets out.

"Do you have anything you're doing?" she asks him.

Warren has plans to play around with Ororo outside; they practice their abilities with each other. He considers her the closest friend he's ever had, as sad as that sounds. 

But if one of the "professors" was looking for his time, then Warren wasn't going to believe that it mattered if he has those plans.

"Nothing I can't work around," he answers. 

Raven, who he's noticed has taken to being in her natural form now on most days, turns and starts down the hall. Warren takes that as the order to follow. He sees Ororo and their group spot him as he does, and he shrugs before he has to pick up his pace. 

She takes him to the elevator and down. Warren hasn't been down below the school since that day the Horsemen came with Apocolypse to take the Professor. He knows Cerebro's been restored, that the x-jet hangar and the training facilities are down here. But Warren doesn't know what that has to do with him.

It gives him an inkling that leaves his chest tightening and his wings tense but Warren doesn't voice it.

Raven takes Warren into the proclaimed Danger Room. It's not what he expects; a blank room with many sealed latches and tech arms that await whatever scenario the X-Men will need. Warren can't envision how it looks when those scenarios start.

"You're a strong fighter, Warren," Raven starts as she faces him. 

Warren's fingers flex against the strap of his bookbag. "I was."

"Still can be."

"That didn't exactly end in a great way for me," Warren reminds, "you were in the vicinity for both times." 

Raven doesn't react with any guilt or sympathy. He wasn't sure if he was looking for it. She had her own causes to fight for and Warren wasn't one of the mutants she came for. At least, not then.

"We could use someone with the aerial advantage like you, Warren. You're agile, you know how to throw a good right hook. I'm sure we can find other strengths if you went into training with us."

Warren's inkling was right; it forces him to take deeper breaths to fight the sudden need to fly away from Raven and the school. "You want me to join the X-Men."

"The team already likes you," Raven nods, "you would be a big advantage on the field."

"You have Ororo. She can do just as much as I can." 

"Not in the same ways." 

"No thank you."

Raven looks him over. Warren doesn't know how she couldn't see him rejecting the offer. "Take some time to consider it."

Warren shakes his head. "I'm not interested in fighting again, Professor Raven. It's cost me a lot and I'm only just now finding a new path for myself."

"You wouldn't be fighting because someone's forcing you to," Raven insists, "and it would be for a good cause. Not because someone wants you for entertainment or to rule the world." 

Warren sighs because she's not listening and he can't keep saying the same thing on repeat, "If I say I'll think about it then can I go?"

Raven looks reluctant but nods. She got what she wanted, sort of. Warren makes a hasty exit, which is why he's able to round the corner of the Disaster Room and spot the tell-tale signs of blue smoke and the disappearing figures of his friends. 

This school is full of eavesdroppers. Warren can't find it in himself to be angry about it. He would have done the same. But also, he's a little bit busy with keeping a lid on the onslaught of the last time he used his wings to fight. 

Warren doesn't tell Ororo that he isn't coming. He goes straight to his room and locks the door so that he can be alone. 

The fights in Berlin were the ones he could handle. He'd gotten himself into that mess and had been resigned to live as the mutant dancing monkey for those men. 

It's that final attempt to take Kurt and the X-Men down that Warren left in a dark corner. He can say he's moved on because he has. It doesn't mean that he let the thoughts dance around willy-nilly.

He spends the next hour on the bed as he fights back the memories and the panic from the moment before he was in the black. 

It's a cruel kindness that no one comes for him. It's only later, when his chest and wings ache and his eyes are a puffy red, that Warren opens his door to find a tray of food left out for him and the cassette Kurt borrowed from Jubilee. 

\---

Nights aren't the best time for Warren. He doesn't tell anyone that sleep hasn't come easily since coming back to life. 

At least, he sinks into that place of blackness and wakes with a panic attack in the morning with only feeling like a few seconds have passed. He'll still be fully rested on those days and let the panic fall back down his throat before continuing the day like nothing's happened.

At worst, it's when Warren is at the mercy of an impending impact with the ground and the entrapment of another metal cage because Nightcrawler won't go down. Those are when Warren wakes feeling like absolute shit. That's when Warren takes more time to get ready and misses out on a meal before he slips into his class. 

Ororo pays closer attention to him on those days. 

But it's currently nighttime, and Warren has spent the last few hours staring out at the night sky. Not for the first time, he feels a tempting itch in his wings to open his window and soar. 

This time, he gives in.

Flight has been liberating since coming to the school. No one's restricted him from it. It's for him to be himself and let his wings breathe. The night sky and its stars welcome Warren as he flies up, the air leaving a pleasant chill on his face. He spins and dives and follows every whim that his instincts share with his muscles. 

He could do this all night. Instead, he does it as long as it takes to tire himself out. Then he flies back down to the school and silently lands his bare feet on the ledge of his window, wings pulling in so he can climb inside. 

Warren shakes out his wings once inside and feels looser than he's been in a while. Heat rushes to his face now that he is out of the cold but he doesn't care, he's busy feeling worn and happy. 

Still. The thought of sleep is one he plans to resist a little longer. So Warren opens his door as noiselessly as he can and pads down the hall to go downstairs. The mansion's kitchen is as spacious as the rest of its rooms with modern appliances and marble top counters. The only thing that isn't housed in the kitchen is alcohol, which Warren realizes that he hasn't thought about since before Apocalypse.

The desire still doesn't come. He looks at it as a good thing. There isn't anything but the nightmares that he's chasing away and now there are healthier outlets. 

It's the fridge that Warren goes to. He looks for something simple, grabs the contents for a sandwich, and nudges the door shut while he puts the sandwich together.

There are few mutants that everyone knows stay awake at night down in the communal areas. Still, Warren is relaxed and hasn't heard anyone coming, so when he hears the soft  _ poof _ that comes with teleportation, his wings shoot out in defense and smack the intruder without a chance for Warren to stop himself. 

There's a yelped "Varren!" before they make contact with the fridge and Warren knows right away who he's just attacked. 

"Kurt I didn't--who just teleports in like that?"

Warren retracts his wings so quickly that he feels a sharp twinge in one of them and hisses, rubbing at his shoulder to fix it. 

Kurt is just as shaken as he is. "No one iz down here ven I am!"

"Well, not this time. Maybe try the hallways first so you don't get much worse the next time." 

Biting at Kurt wasn't his intention but neither was hitting him with his wing. Warren waits until his pulse lowers before he tries to say anything else. 

"Are you okay?" 

Kurt gives him a nod. "I am not injured." 

"Good." Warren doesn't know what else to say so he doesn't. He turns back to his sandwich, finishes putting it together, and starts putting everything back. When he turns around, Kurt is sitting on one of the counters with a package of Oreos.

"Can you, um, pass ze milk?" Kurt asks him, sheepish. Warren grabs the carton and walks it over to him. This is the closest Kurt has let Warren come near him and the most that's been said. 

It's hard to know if it's considered progress but Warren takes it anyway. 

He's ready to leave Kurt on his own and take his snack upstairs when Kurt stops him.

"Are you going to join ze X-Men?"

Warren sets the plate back down. "Since you know I was asked, you should have also heard my answer."

Kurt's shoulders hunch as he blushes, and--

Warren's thoughts cease entirely. He's never seen Kurt react like that to anyone. It's like someone took violets and placed them on the teleporter's cheeks. It's beautiful. The most beautiful things he's seen and it makes Kurt even  _ prettier _ . 

If he could just get the chance to kiss Kurt--

No. No, that's a step too far. Warren shouldn't allow himself to think that far ahead when it's never going to happen.

It's fortunate for him that Kurt hasn't noticed any of his inner turmoil since he's busy looking embarrassed at being caught spying. 

"Ve Vere worried about you," Kurt says. "I am sorry zat ve overheard."

Warren's ears catch on the first part. "You were worried? Or just them?"

Kurt sets his snack aside and looks at Warren earnestly. It's not a look that's been aimed at him before. "All of us."

"You haven't exactly acted as if you like me," Warren responds. He needs to hear how it's changed. How he was able to win Kurt over without knowing it happened. 

"Zey like you. Ororo and Jubilee like you a lot." Kurt plays with his hands and ducks his head so that his bangs fall into his face. "And you have proven you von't hurt zem. You are...just like us. You belong here."

They...were nice words. It was stupid but he was kind of disappointed that it wasn't more. "My parents disowned me so I wouldn't have anywhere else to go," Warren shrugs.

Kurt's head shoots up and Warren sees something like empathy, or maybe recognition, blaze through them. "You have no parents."

Warren took a moment to take in how good it felt to have an actual conversation with the teleporter. It's nothing he liked talking about but for Kurt, he would. Warren's past the hurt of it by now. And...if Jean was able to look at him with acceptance for what else he was then maybe Kurt could too.

The attraction and the desires that Kurt filled Warren with weren't new but they were stronger than he's experienced in the past. 

It might be stupid wanting Kurt to accept him. 

But he wanted it. So much that it was starting to physically hurt. 

"You can't be the owner of a Fortune 500 company and have a son who likes to get in bed with other guys," Warren tells him. He doesn't want the worst but he prepares for it anyway.

"Zey gave you up...because of vat you are," Kurt says, turning over the words with more weight than Warren was anticipating. He looks sad, not angry, but Warren doesn't let himself hope any further.

"Many do," Warren replies bitterly. 

Kurt kicks his feet as he thinks. Warren is stuck where he is, waiting. For something. For anything. 

"I vas abandoned," Kurt tells him, and it's not what Warren was waiting for in the slightest. "Zey left me to die. Ven I vas a baby. For vat I am."

For some reason, Warren never thought about where Kurt came from. There was never any time before death, and now it was such an effort to focus on the present. It makes Warren feel sick when Kurt is such a  _ good _ , sweet guy. Warren had parents but they never cared about him past a future inheritance. He taught himself the important things. 

"Ze circus found me. Raised me as family." Kurt slides off of the counter and crosses the space to Warren, where he actually  _ touches _ him, sets a hand on his shoulder and gives him a  _ smile _ . "Ve create our family. Ze X-Men are our family, Varren. Zey accept us. Ve accept each other, yes?"

Another flash of  _ need _ courses through Warren right then. Because Kurt is a gift to society, carrying such unbridled compassion and optimism that he's never seen before. It draws Warren in, like a moth to a flame, or Icarus to the sun, and all Warren is okay if Kurt burns his wings again. 

Because it sounds so childish when they've barely talked to each other but Warren might be  _ in love _ .

Kurt is accepting him and he doesn't even  _ know _ what else comes with it. 

"Yeah, Kurt," Warren nods, and tries not to choke on the words, "we accept each other." 

Kurt's smile widens. He squeezes Warren's shoulder and retrieves his snack. "gute Nacht, mein Engel," he bids before vanishing.

Kurt doesn't realize that Warren is, completely, his angel.

\---

"I know why you don't want to be an X-Man," Ororo says while they practice in their corner of the yard, the two of them floating in the air, "but think of what we could do fighting on the right side."

Warren loves Ororo in a way unlike he loves Kurt. She is a fierce strength that should never be underestimated, and neither should her intelligence. They shared the same poison and were used. Ororo is resilient. Her friendship is everything that he could ask for and respects it.

"If you know, then why are you pushing it?" he asks as he dodges the storms she lightning she aims at him. 

"He was in my mind, too. I know what others of our kind, not just humans, are capable of. I want to do my part in stopping them so that Apocalypse does not happen again." 

Warren nearly gets struck by a large chunk of hail when she changes forces. He jerks back in the knick of time and swoops around her. "Ororo, I'm not changing my mind. I've fought too long--"

"Our places may have changed but the fight will never be over," she counters. 

"What if I want it to?"

"What if it was Kurt who asked you to join?"

His wings stutter at the wrong time. She notices and takes advantage; she surrounds him in fog to cut off his vision. Warren doesn't know which way she's coming next, exactly how she wants it.

"Did Jean tell you?"

"Jean did not have to tell anyone anything," Ororo answers; her voice echoes through the fog and makes it impossible to pinpoint her location. He didn't need to join the X-Men when he had Ororo to keep his wits sharp. "It is very easy to see, Warren. You did not help yourself with winning him a stuffed animal." 

That was just supposed to be something nice. If everyone knew, did that mean Kurt did too? Was there really no one at the school who was going to chase him out?

Warren spots a darker form in the fog that's coming closer. He starts to beat his wings harder to dispel the fog. There's a clearing and he takes it, freeing himself of her trap.

"I wouldn't change my mind just because some cute mutant smiles and asks," Warren insists; it is better to deny that he  _ would _ say yes if Kurt did that. 

Ororo clears the rest of the fog away and it's clear they've both had enough for the day. They both make a steady descent until their feet touch the ground. "If you decide to change your mind, Warren, we will be happy to have you on the team," she tells him. 

He doesn't see it happening. He guesses the support still feels nice. 

It's as they're walking back to the school that Kurt appears in front of them in his X-Men uniform. Warren's stomach makes a less graceful drop. 

"I am sorry, Varren, but ve have an urgent mission."

Warren and Ororo share a look before she hugs him. "Do not slack on your studies while I am gone," she tells him. "I will quiz you when we come back."

"What if a tornado swoops up my books?" He jokes weakly, his worry for them overpowering his ability to be casual. 

"Then I will make it bring them back," Ororo still follows along, to keep his spirits up. She then takes Kurt's hand and nods for him to go. Kurt looks at Warren though. 

"Ve vill be back, Engel," Kurt promises, taking Warren's breath with them as they poof away. 

\---

Kurt and Ororo, the whole team, being gone makes it harder for Warren when the night comes. 

Their mission isn't over in a few hours and leads Warren to lie in bed with a wild brain concocting all of the ways it could have already gone wrong or  _ will _ go wrong. He takes to the skies again as if playing sentinel of the school will somehow bring them back faster. 

It's as he's idling out there that exhaustion hits him, quick like an arrow's shot through him, and Warren can't control it when he starts to plummet.

He feels the familiar pull of the black as he gets closer to the ground and wonders if he just spent the last several weeks on borrowed time--

The woman is there again. 

He's surrounded by white and she stands in front of him in the same red outfit that makes it undeniable how attractive she is.

If Warren wasn't gay, maybe.

If she hadn't been the one to save his soul, maybe.

This time Warren knows that he can speak. He isn't in a disoriented state like before. He knows what's real.

"Who are you?"

His savior smiles, bittersweet, and cradles his face in her hands. 

_ You will meet me one day, in this universe,  _ she tells him,  _ and you will know me as Wanda. But she will not be the same as me. _

Somehow, it makes sense and it doesn't. Her touch makes sense and it doesn't. It strikes him again that in another life, this touch could feel different for a reason. 

"Then why do I know you now?" he asks. 

_ A wrong needed to be corrected. _

Wanda releases him but her smile doesn't leave.

_ You are meant for great things, Warren. You, Kurt and the X-Men, you have a lot to do together. He will return to you soon. _

"How do you know?" Because Warren feels her words with that strange certainty. He can't explain it. 

_ Chaos brings knowledge _ . Then Wanda kisses him and the world starts fading again.  _ Sweet dreams. _

He does dream. There's no nightmare, only Kurt. He dreams of flying above the blue mutant as if prepared to be his guardian angel should he call to him. 

In the morning, William wakes in his bed and can only assume Wanda was who placed him there. He dresses, lost in his dream, and finds a note taped to his door when he opens it. Ororo's handwriting, bold and edgy, says they're back.

Warren leaves the team to sleep, his own fears quelled. He'll see them when they've rested. He takes his textbooks and goes out to the split-tree to study. Time passes quickly with no distractions, until it is lunchtime and he starts to consider going inside to make something. 

That's when he sees Jean, Scott, and Jubilee taking a walk around the pond. He has enough time to wonder where Ororo and Kurt are when the latter drops down from the branches using his tail.

"Varren!" he exclaims, and again, it catches Warren off-guard enough to make his wings puff out ready to take off. 

"Kurt, you really need to stop doing that," the blond tells him. 

Kurt, also again, looks chastened enough for it. "Sorry." 

Warren's plans for lunch subside now that the other mutant is there so he settles back in his place against the tree. "How was the mission?"

"Very exciting, Engel." 

The last words are like shooting Warren up with a needle; it makes him feel high and giddy, the smallest of words and inflections that come with it. 

"And Ororo? I didn't see her with the others."

"Very tired," Kurt replies, "she used lots of her energy." 

That means Warren should probably take her something to eat so that she can recover her energy faster. 

"Varren?"

"Yeah, Kurt?" 

"Zer has been encouragement zat I should be asking you somezing," Kurt starts, and Warren is helpless to give him his undivided attention. 

"Okay," he replies, "shoot."

There's a blush on Kurt's cheeks again and he can tell the mutant's growing nervous as he plays with his hands. "Vould you vant to go out vith me?"

A record scratches in Warren's head that makes everything stop.

"Did you just ask me out?" Warren responds. "For a date?" 

Kurt nods, which looks difficult when hanging upside down. "I did, yes."

He said encouragement. Warren looks over where their friends are and it's not hard to put it together that their walk is no coincidence. Jean and Jubilee wave while Scott continues his attempt at being cooler than he is.

"Just to check here," he says when he turns back to Kurt, "you  _ want _ to go out with me, right?"

"Yes," Kurt affirms. 

Ororo was going to hate that she missed this, which made Warren feel even better. "Yeah, Kurt. I'll go out with you."

When he saw Ororo later and filled her in, Warren's prediction was right; she had plans to give their friends a good talking-to for not waiting until she was awake to send Kurt to him. 

\---

Kurt and Warren went on a movie date. It was  _ Wargames _ , and neither of them knows for sure if what's happening makes any sense, but they sit in the back of the theater and do the silly couple-y thing of sharing a large tub of popcorn.

It was stupid how much Warren likes it every time he and Kurt touch hands when they go for more. 

It was even stupider how much he likes seeing the violet in Kurt's cheeks afterward.

"If a powerful computer can make ze missiles almost destroy ze vorld like ze Professor's Cerebro, zen does zat mean ve shouldn't use it?" Kurt whispers.

"I've heard Raven say he uses it to keep tabs on Magneto," Warren whispers back, "so he's not going to shut it off. We should probably have some doomsday plans ready."

Warren starts the date ready for there to be a problem with people seeing them on a date. 

He doesn't know if it's because they're mutants or because of how many times the X-Men have saved the world, but it doesn't happen. It's a big mercy that lets Warren relax more as the date goes on.

By the time the movie's over, he and Kurt have been giggling at the wrong times because they can't stop thinking about Professor McCoy being Matthew Broderick. 

The date gets even better when it's Kurt who asks if he doesn't mind staying out longer. The curfew the Professor gave them for the date wasn't for another hour and a half, so Warren took the offer, and Kurt's hand, and let the teleporter poof them to an ice cream shop.

Warren lets Kurt take his time as he looks over the flavor options. When the mutant's gone back and forth five times, he does what he wanted to at the mall and wraps a hand around Kurt's tail to tether him back to where the patient server was behind the counter. 

He takes one look at her shirt and the gawking look on her face and knows she's a fan. But Kurt, he's only got eyes for Warren, and the blond is hoping that their eyes say the same thing. 

"Two scoops of birthday cake," Kurt tells her. It's so sugary-sweet and a random flavor that Warren loses it. 

It takes him a few tries before he can stop laughing and forms words again. "I'll do two of the wild n' reckless." 

Warren's scoops are a bright pastel confection of green, blue, and pink that's fruity and tart on his tongue but he doesn't care when Kurt's got his hand again while he eats the ice cream like he's in a race. 

"You know you'll get a brain freeze doing that, right?" Warren asks, and the look of reminiscent horror that forms on Kurt's face is priceless.

"Not again," Kurt says in despair. Not long after that is when it hits and Warren laughs all over again at the cries of regret.

When Kurt's cries die down, he steps closer and takes a look at him. "Are you okay?"

Kurt nods with a weak smile. "Ice cream is just so good."

"Next time, just take it slow," Warren suggests, "it's still good that way. You get to actually enjoy it without the pain."

"Next time?" Kurt looks at him hopefully.

Warren can't tamper down his own smile. "Yeah, Kurt. There is a next time." 

Poofing back to the mansion is bittersweet; Warren knows that they'll see each other in the morning but he wishes this was a place where he was allowed to sneak Kurt up into his room for the night. It leaves him with plenty of future ideas since he doesn't even think Kurt's the type of guy to do anything that way on the first date. 

Kurt poofs them at the top of the staircase. It's a short distance to Warren's door first. He doesn't mind all this romantic stuff, or the way his stomach twists up with anticipation.

"See you in the morning, Kurt," Warren bids him.

"Gute Nacht, mein Engel," Kurt returns, and this time, Warren doesn't hold back at the name. He pulls Kurt into a kiss and his body  _ sings _ . Kissing Kurt lets him intermingle the taste of sherbet with the vanilla of birthday cake and it works for him. Kurt's tail wraps around his waist and Warren really doesn't care that they are standing in the hallway, it's not like anyone is around to see--

"Well, what do we have here?"

They break apart and Warren glares at Peter, who is watching them with dancing eyes and a shit-eating grin. 

"We're saying goodnight since the date's over," Warren growls, and makes a note for later when he feels Kurt shiver against him. 

Peter nods, looking back and forth at them, the grin staying put. "Oh yeah, of course, nothing like a good game of tonsil hockey to really put the date to a close. I get it."

Then there's a short gust and the loss of Kurt's heat as Peter is suddenly between them. "Buuuuut, sadly for you, it's past bedtime for you both, so Kurt needs to poof himself to his own room."

Warren meets Kurt's wide eyes around Peter's shoulder before he does exactly what's suggested and teleports away. 

"You need a life of your own, man," Warren tells Peter as he unlocks his door.

"I've got it, you're just making a little cameo." Peter ducks his head in to look around before Warren can fully close the door behind him. "Nice space, by the way."

"Goodnight, Peter." 

The speedster huffs but steps back. "Yeah yeah, goodnight."

Warren locks the door as soon as it's shut. He's able to brush off Peter's interruption though since he's again reminded that he'll just see Kurt in the morning and they can pick up where they left off before class. 

He undresses and throws on his sleep clothes, then climbs into bed and curls up on his side. The stars illuminate the sky out here. Warren doesn't have an urge to go flying. He doesn't feel like he's going to be stuck awake. 

The blond closes his eyes, heart light as one of his feathers, and falls asleep. 

\---

"Are you ready?" Ororo asks when he meets her outside the door to the Danger Room.

He's in his newly-fitted uniform, wings relaxed against his back. "Not really," Warren answers honestly. "But I'm doing it anyway."

She hits the keypad and scans herself to open the doors. Jean, Scott, Peter, and Jubilee are already in their uniforms and waiting inside with Raven is a blue beacon in the observation room.

"Everyone's here now," she declares, "get ready for your first simulation, Warren. I'm not taking it easy on you." 

Warren leaves Storm to stand by Kurt's side. His boyfriend grins and takes his hand while he still can.

"I vill have your back, Varren.

"And I'll cover yours."

As the room starts to warp around them into dark woods, Warren lifts off into the air, ready to be Nightcrawler's guardian angel like in his dream.

"All right, X-Men," Raven's voice comes from the intercom, "let's begin."

**Author's Note:**

> Please, comments and kudos are always a welcomed highlight to my day!


End file.
